1. A netball club buys 8 balls at $23 each and 3 nets at $46 each. It pays with $500. How much change does the club get?
ICAS Mathematics Paper D (Year 6)
Paper D is sat by Year 6 students, and it is the paper where the format changes. The first 35 questions are multiple choice as before. Questions 36 to 40 ask for a number typed in. The paper also runs longer than the lower levels — 60 minutes rather than 45.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
Why the last five questions change everything
Removing the options removes the safety net. On Papers A to C a student who is unsure can substitute the four choices and see which one works. From question 36 on Paper D, that is gone: the answer has to be produced.
Those five are consistently the hardest questions on the paper, and they are where the strongest students separate from the rest. They are also where the clock does the most damage, because they sit at the end.
A practical consequence: pacing matters more on Paper D than on any lower paper. A student who spends too long in the middle arrives at question 36 with no time and no way to guess efficiently.
What Year 6 content shows up
Integers go negative. Order of operations becomes something the paper actively tests rather than assumes. Percentages arrive, and with them the first questions that need a percentage of a quantity rather than a simple fraction. Ratio appears in its early form. Volume moves to prisms, and the Cartesian plane turns up as a way to ask about position. Probability starts being expressed as a fraction rather than as words.
Where Year 6 students lose marks
- The integer tail, through time rather than ability. Many students could answer question 38 with five spare minutes and never get them.
- Order of operations inside a longer problem. Fine in a drill, wrong when it is one step of three.
- Percentage of a quantity versus percentage change. The two get conflated the moment the wording gets less direct.
What the mark will look like
ICAS marks run lower than school tests by design. The paper keeps stretching students well past year level, so a result that looks disappointing on a school scale can be a strong ICAS result — read it against the distribution rather than as a percentage.
How to prepare for Paper D
Two things, in this order. First, sit full 60-minute papers rather than question sets — the whole point of this level is that the end of the paper is where the marks are, and you cannot practise that in ten-question chunks. Second, practise producing answers rather than picking them: cover the options on old multiple-choice questions and work the answer out cold.
Common questions
Which year level sits ICAS Paper D?
Year 6. ICAS names its papers by letter rather than by year — Paper A is Year 3 and Paper F is Year 8 — so a Year 6 student sits Paper D.
How long is Maths Paper D?
40 questions in 60 minutes.
What are the integer-answer questions?
The last five. Instead of choosing from four options, the student works out a number and writes it in. They are consistently the hardest questions on the paper, and they remove the option of working backwards from the choices.
Year 6 also sits: English Paper D · Spelling Paper D · Science Paper D
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: B
First step — the balls: 8 × $23 = $184.
Second step — the nets: 3 × $46 = $138. So the whole order costs $184 + $138 = $322.
Third step — the change: $500 − $322 = $178.
The club gets $178 in change.
2. The sum of five consecutive whole numbers is 205. What is the LARGEST of the five numbers?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: 43
Five consecutive numbers balance around their middle: the middle one is 205 ÷ 5 = 41.
The five numbers are 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 — the largest is 43.
Check: 39 + 40 + 41 + 42 + 43 = 205 ✓
The largest of the five is 43.
3. A square courtyard has an area of 64 m². How long is each side?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: A
A square's area is side × side.
Find the number that multiplies by itself to make 64: 8 × 8 = 64.
Each side is 8 m.
Each side of the courtyard is 8 m.
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More ICAS maths papers: Paper C (Year 5) · Paper E (Year 7)
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